The 4 Best Affiliate Programs for Online Marketers

From well-known brands like Amazon.com to niche products, almost every online business worth mentioning has its own affiliate program, letting marketers earn a commission or revenue share whenever they bring in a new lead or make a sale.

Affiliate marketing programs range hugely in quality, scale and reliability. In this blog post, we’ll share four of the best affiliate programs for marketers, bloggers or anyone else interested in generating a full-time income online.

Have you heard of affiliate marketing and want to learn more? Learn the basics of affiliate marketing – from the difference between CPS and CPA programs to great promotional methods for beginners – in our Affiliate Marketing for Noobs course.

Amazon.com Associates

Amazon.com is the world’s largest online retailer, and their affiliate program is – quite appropriately – the world’s most popular affiliate program. Amazon offers affiliates a commission of up to 10% for direct sales of certain products.

There are numerous advantages to Amazon’s affiliate program. First of all, it’s run by one of the world’s most trusted companies, giving affiliates confidence that their commissions will be paid out on time, every time.

Second, Amazon’s huge product range means that its affiliate program is suitable for a massive variety of marketers and bloggers. From sports equipment to sunglasses, an Amazon affiliate can earn generous commission on almost any type of product.

Finally, Amazon’s affiliate program is easy to join and even easier to manage once you’re an active member. From tracking codes to detailed invoices, Amazon makes tracking your earnings, payments and conversion rates remarkably simple.

While Amazon Associates has numerous benefits, it also has some downsides. Since payments take as long as 45 days to be processed, it’s not suitable for affiliates that need to manage advertising payments or have strict cash flow requirements.

Secondly, Amazon doesn’t pay the same commission or all products. While affiliates will earn a 10% commission for sales of certain digital products, they’ll only make a 4% commission on sales of consumer electronics items.

Would you like to sign up to the Amazon.com Associates program and start earning income from your blog or website today? Amazon’s affiliate program is lucrative for the right marketers, but many affiliates struggle to make even a single sale.

Learn the secrets of promoting your Amazon.com affiliate links using your own blog, Facebook Ads and other online marketing methods to generate massive profits with the A-Z Amazon Profits Blueprint.

eBay Partner Network

The eBay partner network operates similarly to Amazon’s, with commissions paid to affiliates based on the sales they produce. However, eBay’s affiliate program offers a percentage of the eBay fee to affiliates instead of a price-based commission.

Like Amazon’s affiliate program, the eBay Partner Network is ideal for bloggers and website owners that specialize in a particular niche or product. Since eBay has such a huge inventory of products, it’s possible to promote almost anything.

One advantage of eBay’s affiliate program is that it pays affiliates a 200% bonus for purchases made by new customers. This makes it a lucrative source of income if the affiliate can find a way to market to an audience that’s never used eBay before.

eBay’s revenue sharing arrangement varies by country, with commissions ranging from 50% to 80% of the eBay fees depending on the location of the affiliate and the type of product purchased by the referred user.

Like Amazon, eBay offers a wide range of tools and widgets for affiliates to assist in maximizing their earnings. These include blog widgets that list recommended eBay listings based on the content of the blog post or the usage of target keywords.

LinkShare

LinkShare is an affiliate network – a type of business that connects affiliates with cost-per-sale and cost-per-action affiliate programs. LinkShare has thousands of merchants in its network, including leading brands like Macy’s and Sephora.

Since LinkShare is an affiliate network instead of a direct affiliate program, it’s an excellent choice for marketers that want to promote products and services from a wide variety of different merchants.

Owned by Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten, LinkShare has a great reputation among marketers and publishers and operates a slick, user-friendly platform that makes tracking clicks, conversions and commissions nice and easy.

Because LinkShare operates as a network and has thousands of programs for users to choose from, the application requirements are more strict than for other affiliate programs. Certain affiliate programs require in-depth interviews before marketers are granted access to their tracking links and advertising creatives.

Would you like to generate an online income using LinkShare? Learn the secrets of promoting CPS (cost-per-sale) and CPA (cost-per-action) affiliate offers on networks like LinkShare in our AffiloBlueprint: Learn Affiliate Marketing course.

CPA Affiliate Networks

The three affiliate programs listed above – Amazon.com, eBay and LinkShare – offer a mix of cost-per-sale and cost-per-action affiliate programs, but the vast majority of their offers are strictly cost-per-sale.

Since these programs pay affiliates for leads or actions (for example, a user signing up for a free-to-play online game) they typically have higher conversion rates than cost-per-sale affiliate offers.

There are hundreds of CPA networks around, ranging in quality and reliability from established companies with hundreds of millions of dollars in capital to small, niche networks run by individuals or small teams.

With the right combination of network, offer and marketing method, it’s possible to earn thousands of dollars per day promoting CPA offers. However, like most online marketing ventures, a small few marketers are earning the bulk of the CPA income.

Learn more about affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing is a big industry, and there are thousands of affiliate programs in virtually every industry for marketers to promote. No matter what your specialty is, there’s undoubtedly an affiliate program that matches your blog or website.